


Misunderstandings

by Bookwormpride



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Gen, Greg is the best, Hurt/Comfort, Someone needs to give this literal child a hug
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-09
Updated: 2018-03-09
Packaged: 2019-03-28 22:22:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,085
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13913388
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bookwormpride/pseuds/Bookwormpride
Summary: As Steven learns more about the gem world and his mother’s legacy there’s a lot of things troubling him, but every time he reaches out for help he finds himself feeling more confused and isolated.





	Misunderstandings

Steven squirmed down into the pillows as Garnet pulled the covers up around his shoulders and sat down on the edge of his bed. Most kids probably would have been embarrassed being tucked into bed at fourteen years old, but Steven didn’t mind. He took any chance he got to spend time with Garnet.

Besides, it didn’t happen every night, but he _had_ just returned from being stranded in space and the gems had been worried about him.

“I’m glad you and Connie are okay,” Garnet said as she fixed his pillows.

“Yeah, it’s nice to be home. Camping out on an alien planet is fun, but I like my bed.” Steven said.

Garnet chuckled. Steven smiled easily for a moment before looking away out the window, his expression turning troubled.

“Something is bothering you,” Garnet said, not needing to ask to know it was true.

Steven hesitated, he hadn’t talked to anyone about this yet, worried they wouldn’t understand. But Garnet always knew what to say, and how to help. He couldn’t think of anyone better to tell. He took a deep breath.“It’s just… the Diamonds. Ever since I saw them at the human zoo I can’t stop thinking about how upset they are about what happened to Pink Diamond.”

Garnet hmmed thoughtful, encouraging him to go on.

“When Stevonnie was dreaming in the moonbase they saw this memory of Yellow and Pink Diamond, but Yellow was Dr. Maheswaran in it, so I think maybe Yellow was kind of like Pinks mom?” Steven said slowly, building confidence as he spoke and Garnet didn’t rebuff him.

“And during the trial Blue and Yellow were both so mad at me because of what they thought I did,” Steven continued. “And when Zircon said that one of them did it Yellow just… freaked out and poofed her. And Yellow wants to destroy the Earth because it reminds her of Pink, and Blue Diamond wants to take more humans to remember her, and they both want someone to blame for her death because... I think they think it will make them feel better…” Steven said, his voice trailing off as his gaze fell to his hands folded in his lap.

Garnet gently laid a hand on his cheek. He lifted his eyes to meet hers, suddenly exposed without her visor, wide and honest. “It’s scary when the Diamonds are angry at you,” Garnet said. “I know. They seem so powerful and larger than life. But Steven, I won’t _ever_ let them hurt you.”

Stevens throat felt tight. He _was_ scared, more than he had realized until she said it. But then Garnet gave him a confident smile as if everything was all better, and he became confused.

“Yeah, but I’m kind of… worried about them,” Steven ventured.

“You don’t need to be. The Crystal Gems have protected the earth for thousands of years, and now we have even more to fight for then ever,” Garnet said, smirking at him.

Stevens eyebrows drew together. He tried to find the words to explain that wasn’t what he meant. He wasn’t worried about what the Diamonds would _do_ , he was worried about _them_ , about how they were feeling, about how they were _hurt_ \- not too dissimilar to his own family who were still mourning his mom.

He didn’t want to fight the Diamonds, he wanted to help them.

Before he could voice any of this Garnet leaned forward and kissed him on the forehead. “You should sleep, you’ve had a long couple of days.” She said. “Goodnight.”

Steven watched her stand and head down the stairs, still unsure how the conversation had gotten turned around.

 

Steven passed the cookie tray to Pearl and she slid it into the oven, humming quietly. She started gathering up the dishes they had made while baking and putting them in the sink.

Listening to her hum Steven became lost in thought, and absentmindedly began drawing in the flour that dusted the counter where they had rolled out the cookie dough.

“Steven, don’t play in the flour, you’ll get it everywhere.” Pearl chidded, pushing him aside and brushing the flour into her hand to throw in the garbage.

“Sorry,” He said, clapping the white powder off his hands. He pulled himself up into one of the chairs on the other side of the counter. “Hey Pearl, can I ask you something?”

“Of course,” She said.

He watched her for a moment longer, nervous of what her reaction might be, but if there was anyone to turn to with this, it was Pearl. “Do you still think I’m like mom?” He asked.

As expected Pearl froze, but only for a second. She looked at him and smiled. “Yes, I do, Steven.” She said, and went on with the clean up. “You’re more like her every day, so… compassionate, and loving, and brave.”

Steven nodded. Those were good things, he reminded himself. “It’s funny,” he said. “I used to be so worried that I wouldn’t be like her, that I would have disappointed her, that I wouldn’t get her powers, and I wouldn’t be a real Crystal Gem…” he laughed uneasily.

Pearl turned from the sink and reached across the counter, covering his hand with hers and squeezing it. “And look, you had nothing to worry about,” She said with a smile. “You can summon her shield, you’ve got her healing powers, the bubble came so naturally to you. You’re becoming such a good leader. Your mother would be proud.”

Steven felt ashamed of the happiness that swelled in his chest hearing that. He told himself he shouldn't want his mom's approval, but there was a part of him that still yearned for it. He forged on, shaking his head to clear it. “But now that I know about… about Bismuth, and Pink Diamond, and all the secrets she kept, I wonder if I _am_ like her...”

If I could betray someone like she did, he thought. If I could hide things from the people I love like she did. If I could hurt- _kill_ someone like she did.

He wasn’t sure he wanted to be like Rose Quartz any more.

“Oh Steven,” Pearl sighed. “Rose made a lot of tough decisions, but no one expects you to make any of those yet, maybe you’ll never have to. But I know that if the time comes, you’ll make the right choices too.”

He realized Pearl hadn’t understood. She thought he was still worried he couldn’t live up to Rose Quartz, when his real fear was that he _would_.

He also realized that he had been wrong to come to her with this. Pearl thought his mom was perfect, and wouldn’t let anyone say a bad word against her. He couldn’t tell her how he really felt.

Steven forced a smile. “Right. Thanks, Pearl.”

Pearl smiled back and let go of his hand.

 

Steven used to love the night sky. When he was a kid - well, a younger kid - sometimes his dad would drive out into an empty field as the sun went down, shut off the vans lights and pull Steven onto the roof to watch the stars. He would help him connect the dots of each constellation and tell him the stories behind them. The sky was his bedtime story for the first few years of his life.

As he got older, and he moved in with the gems, Pearl loved to teach him about the stars in a different way. She told him how the stars were made, and the solar systems and the galaxies they resided in, the planets moons orbited, and the distant worlds she had seen many many years ago. Space was endless and fascinating, and Steven hoped he could explore it the way she had one day.

Now, Steven sighed, looking away from the sky to his feet swinging from the edge of the chair instead.

“What’s eatin’ ya, Stee-man?” Amethyst asked casually from the other side of the patio table.

Steven shrugged. “Just thinking about the Rubies…”

“I thought you said they were okay? Navy picked them up when she took the ship, didn’t she?” Amethyst said.

“Yeah,” Steven agreed. “They’re fine, I mean, they’re safe, but I still feel bad.”

“It was a fight, someone was gonna get hurt, getting hurled into space wasn’t the worst thing that could have happened to them,” Amethyst said.

“I know but… then I just left them out there, even when I hit them with the ship and I said I would go back for them… I didn’t,” Steven said. “It’s kinda like Bismuth.”

“Aw, dude,” Amethyst groaned.

“She’s been bubbled for so long, because she had some bad ideas, and instead of trying to make her understand why she was wrong I just put her in another bubble,” Steven said, anger at himself seeping into his voice. “And Jasper, I didn’t even try to help her until it was too late and now she’s corrupted and I don’t even know if I’ll ever be able to heal her.”

Steven began shaking as he continued, “And maybe there was nothing I could do for the Rubies right away but I should have gone back for them, I should have tried to help them. And all those people, all my _friends_ , who almost got taken, it was because of me, and Lars _died_ , Amethyst, because of _me_. It’s all my fault, I keep hurting people!” Steven exclaimed, grabbing fistfuls of hair in his hands. His eyes stung with tears.

He let out a harsh sob. “It’s my fault.” He repeated. “I’m not a good person. I want to be but I- I keep messing up, and I don’t know how- how to fix it.”

He thought of Jasper, how he had been so scared of her, how he hadn’t stopped to consider that maybe she was hurting until she was on the ground, green patches and spikes spreading across her skin, crying out about her love for her Diamond.

Bismuth, who he hadn’t known how to deal with, so he decided to put it off until he figured out how to approach her, and now he kept putting off longer and longer.

He remembered Eyeball, who had just wanted closure after the war, who was desperate for some recognition and praise, and he had lied to her thinking it would help, and then thrown her into space when it didn’t. The rest of the Rubies too, who had just been doing their job, and he hadn’t given a second thought to because he was so caught up in his own problems.

He didn’t know how to accept what he had done without hating himself, and there was a part of him that thought maybe he _should_ hate himself, that he deserved to feel bad.

And more importantly, he didn’t know how to make any of it better. How could he help them now? When Bismuth and Jasper were in bubbles, and the Rubies back on Homeworld, and they all, understandably, hated him?

“Steven,” Amethyst said, her voice uncharacteristically soft. Suddenly she was kneeling beside him, a hand on his knee. “You’re not a bad person. You’re literally the nicest person I know. It’s not your fault.”

“But it is-” He started to protest.

“It’s like, for almost all of my life I blamed myself for the Kindergarten,” Amethyst said, shifting uncomfortably but continuing anyway. “I thought I was a bad person because I was made there, ‘cause I used some of Earth's good stuff to make me. But that wasn’t _my_ fault, I shouldn’t’ve felt bad, and you shouldn’t either.”

Steven stared at her blankly. Of course the Kindergarten wasn’t her fault, she hadn’t chose to be made there, she hadn’t consciously taken from the Earth, she couldn’t have done anything differently or fixed it afterwards.

But Steven had made choices that had hurt other people, maybe not maliciously, but out of fear and misjudgement and naivety, and pretending the blame wasn’t his wouldn’t help make it better.

Amethyst must have mistaken his silence to mean he had nothing else to say, because she stood up, clapping him on the shoulder. “Don’t be so hard on yourself, guy,” She said before falling back into her chair and kicking her feet up on the table.

The moment had passed, and Steven couldn’t find it in himself to bring it up again, so he let it go.

 

Steven heard the warp pad activate signaling Pearls departure while him and Connie did their cool-down stretches. Steven let go of his toes and fell back against the cool tile of the sky arena with a huff. He worked on steadying his breathing as his heartbeat slowly returning to normal, and relished in the cold breeze against his hot skin.

Opening his eyes he found himself looking at the Diamond Authority symbol that hovered above the entrance, the pink diamond at the bottom broken, whether on purpose or by some crazy, messed up coincidence.

Beside him Connie finished stretching and laid down beside him, her arm almost touching his.

“Are you thinking about Pink Diamond?” She asked, always in tune with what he was feeling.

He nodded. “That dream we had about her…”

“That was weird,” She said.

“She wasn’t at all like what I expected,” He said. Ever since that dream he couldn’t stop remembering the feeling of glass breaking under her fist, the anger and frustration and hurt burning in her chest, and her words… _I wanna command a drop ship! Let me do it! It’s not fair! I’m just as important as you!_

“Me either,” Connie agreed. “Do you think she was defective? Like Amethyst?”

“I don’t know,” He said, looking away. “Maybe she was just really young, I mean, the Earth was her first colony, and the way she acted...”

“But gems don’t age,” Connie reminded him.

“Maybe Diamonds are different?” He ventured.

Connie sat up and got a cloth out of her duffle bag, pulling her sword into her lap to polish off the blade. Steven propped himself up on his elbows, watching her.

“Garnet and Pearl keep telling me how bad Pink Diamond was, like… like she was evil,” Steven said. “But I don’t know if she really was…”

Connie shifted the blade in the sunlight to see any spots she had missed. “She still wanted to destroy the Earth, and she kept all those humans in that zoo, and she made the Crystal Gems have to fight the war. I don’t think it matters if she was defective or young or anything, she still did bad things,” She said.

“But maybe she was just doing what the other Diamonds did. Remember when she was all ‘ _I wanna command an army, I wanna have a colony_ ’ when she seen Yellow doing it?” Steven said, doing a bad imitation of Pink Diamonds voice. “Maybe she just… wanted to be like them…”

Thinking of how Pink Diamond had felt in that dream, Steven remembered a couple years ago, when the gems would go off on missions without him, and Pearl or Garnet or Amethyst would always say “ _sorry Steven, but you’re not ready to come_.”

He thought of the shattered glass in the moonbase, and of the door to his moms room opening for him for the first time, “ _it’s never about what I want, is it_?”

He heard her “ _I’m just as important as you_ ” and his own words echoed back, “ _I’m a Crystal Gem too_!”

“She kind of reminded me of how I used to be,” Steven confessed. Connie's head snapped up, concern in her eyes, but she let him explain. “I just wanted to be like the Crystal Gems, and be taken seriously, and do the cool things they did, and maybe that's what she wanted too.”

“I- I guess, but Steven-”

“What if it had been the other way around? What if I had been raised by the Diamonds? Maybe I would have been like her,” Steven said.

“There’s no way!” Connie interjected. “Steven, you’re too good and kind and nice, you could never be like the Diamonds. Pink Diamond was an awful dictator, you would never be like that.”

Steven wanted to protest that he wasn’t worried about being like Pink Diamond, but rather wondering if Pink Diamond could have been like him, in the right circumstances, and if that was true, then was she truly evil?

But Steven looked into Connies eyes, seeing the sincerity and fierceness there, and he couldn’t argue with her.

He just wished he could be as sure about where he stood as she was.

 

Steven woke with a start, breathing heavily as he tried to orient himself. He hated how familiar he was becoming with waking up like this.

“Hey, you okay?” Greg asked, leaning over him. Steven could just make out the worry on his face from the light coming through the vans windows.

He had gone to the carwash to spend the night with his dad, just like old times - playing their guitars together, sharing a mattress in the back of the van, making waffles in the morning. It was something he hadn’t done in a while, and lately he had been feeling nostalgic for easier days.

But the nightmares couldn’t leave him alone even for that night. He dreamed of a pink sword through Bismuth's chest, and Blue Diamond crying into her hands over a palanquin half her size. He stood in the bubble room inside the temple, with so many corrupted gems floating above his head. He seen through Pink Diamonds eyes as she stood in front of her palanquin, but then he started to become Rose Quartz, and he was back in the dark room his trial had been held in, pleading to a crowd he couldn’t see but could sense to forgive him.

Steven nodded wordlessly in response to his dads question, pushing himself up. He wrapped his arms around his stomach, hugging himself tightly. He was shaking, and suddenly overwhelmed with emotions he had been trying to keep at bay around the gems. He sobbed and tears started pouring down his cheeks as he covered his face with his hands.

“Aw, Steven,” Greg muttered, pulling him into his lap and hugging him close while he cried. “What’s going on?” He asked sympathetically, brushing Stevens hair back from his face while waiting patiently for him to get ahold of himself enough to speak

“I don’t kn-know what to do,” Steven said, sniffling heavily. “There’s so much wrong and I don’t know how to fix any of it, I don’t know if I even _can_. I bubbled an old Crystal Gem named Bismuth and let Jasper get corrupted, and I think… I think I’m selfish because I just want to pretend they don’t exist because I feel so bad every time I think about them, but then when I remember I feel even worse for ignoring them.”

“And Pink Diamond is dead,” He continued in a rush. “And I don’t know if mom shattered her or not but the Diamonds think she did. And I feel bad for them because they loved her and just because they’re bad doesn’t mean their feelings don’t matter, right? You-you always told me that _everyone's_ feelings matter. But the gems keep saying that if they come we’ll have to fight them, but I don’t wanna fight them, there just- there has to be another way that helps them _and_ protects the Earth, but I don’t know what and I feel like I’m dumb for thinking both can happen.”

Steven rubbed the tears from his cheeks with the back of his hand. “And I know you all loved mom so much, and you all tell me how great she was, but what if- what if I think she was wrong?”He said, the words bursting out of him. More tears fell and replaced the ones he had just wiped away. “What if I don’t want to be like her?” He mumbled, his voice breaking. He couldn’t look at his dad, afraid of what he would see in his face.

Instead, he was surprised when Greg rested his hand on Stevens back. “Then I’d say that’s okay, normal - good even.”

Steven looked up then, his wet eyes wide with shock. Greg chuckled and wiped the tears from his cheeks. “Steven, you’re not supposed to be Rose, you’re not a replacement, or a mini-her. You don’t have to agree with everything she did, or _anything_ she did for that matter. Jeez, I was about your age when I started fighting with _my_ parents about things they believed, and eventually I changed my name so I wouldn’t have to be connected to them any more, and left.”

“Part of growing up is realizing that you don’t have to see eye-to-eye with your parents on stuff, and that’s good,” Greg said. “One of the signs you’ve raised your kid right is that they don’t always agree with you, that they can think for themselves and make their own decisions. I’m _proud_ of you. She would be too, not that it should necessarily matter to you what she thinks if you don’t want it to.”

“And I don’t think you’re dumb for wanting to help the Diamonds, I think you’re _Steven_ ,” Greg laughed. “You want to help _everyone_ , you don’t want anyone to feel bad. And I know that if you want a way to fix things with the Diamonds without violence, you’ll find one, you always do. You got Peridot to help you guys, and you made Lapis return the ocean, and that corrupted centipeedle thing you told me about, you made peace with all of them just by being their friend, by being _you_.”

Steven swallowed hard around the lump in his throat. “But what about Jasper and Bismuth and the-”

“Look, I don’t know exactly what happened there,” Greg admitted. “But everyone makes mistakes, and everyone hurts someone sometimes. It can be really hard to forgive yourself for that when you try really hard to be a kind person, but you know what shows who you really are? Not the mistakes. That you feel bad about them, that you want to make it better. All you can do is learn from them, and try to help them if you think you can.”

“But Steven,” Greg said solemnly. “A lot of this gem stuff, a lot these problems, they started a long time before you were even born. It’s not your responsibility to fix it all. You’re just a kid, you’re supposed to be out eating fry bits with Connie, and playing guitar with your old man, not trying to resolve an intergalactic war. You can be a little easier on yourself.”

Steven sighed, his chest heavy but kind of in a good way as the truth of his dads words settled in his mind. He knew he was right. Even without understanding gem stuff, his dad was usually right about life stuff.

“Thanks dad,” Steven muttered, his voice raspy from crying. He leaned against his chest and closed his eyes, exhausted from so much emotion and from so many nights of restless sleep.

“Of course, kiddo,” Greg said, hugging him again. “You know you don’t have to deal with all of this alone, right? I’m always here for you, and the gems, and Connie are too I bet.”

“I tried talking to them about it but they just… didn’t get it.” Steven said.

“Mm, yeah, the gems aren’t always the… best with feelings.” Greg agreed. “Don’t be too hard on them, a lot of this human stuff is still new to them, and they can be pretty set in their ways, but I’ve seen them change a lot since you were born, more than I think any of them thought was possible, and it’s all because of you. You’re helping them be better too, Steven.”

Steven gave a tired smile. “Yeah, yeah I guess so.”

“C’mon, lets get you back in bed,” Greg said. Steven crawled out of his lap and back under the sheets, he closed his eyes and tried not to worry about dreams finding him again.

Then he heard his dad tuning his guitar, before beginning to play a quiet melody, the way he used to when Steven had trouble falling asleep when he was younger. Steven felt himself relaxing, and opened his eyes just long enough to give Greg a grateful smile.


End file.
